


First

by ChloShow



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Childhood, Gen, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 14:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6661426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloShow/pseuds/ChloShow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As hard as he tried, Chuck didn't have the faith to be the saint his father was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First

As the first child, he set the bar, and what a high, unreachable bar it was.

***

Charles McGill Jr., known as Chuck to his father’s Charlie, was born to a modest Midwestern couple in 1951 and grew to know fear. When kids at school speculated whether or not Chicago would be destroyed by Cuba in a nuclear war, Chuck, worried about his family’s safety, informed his classmates that Chicago would most certainly be destroyed first seeing as it was the second biggest city in the U.S. After bringing up his plan to move from Cicero to somewhere more remote, his father laughed kindly, kneeled down to his eye level, and told him they’d be okay because God would protect them.

At age 12, he knew he wanted to become a clergyman. He devoured books on the history of Christianity, asked his teachers where he could get the most recent news on Vatican II. Devoting his talents to God would be righteous and could offer the McGills protection in the case that Russia launched a nuclear strike or his dad were drafted and sent to Vietnam.

It was nearing the end of lunchtime and the end of the first semester of his 7th grade year when he heard the news:  
President Kennedy had been shot.  
Religion no longer offered a safe haven for Chuck when he realized God could let the Irish-American, Catholic leader of the United States die.

Entering the 8th grade, he noticed he wasn’t like other boys. Academic and musical talents were not skills his peers approved of; in fact, the combination seemed to be accompanied with the word SQUARE affixed to his forehead in large red letters. However, none of this was new to him. As frustrating as the social hierarchies were to him, he knew he’d gain his footing as a professional while jocks got stuck in meat packing jobs, drowning their sad lives in alcohol. But what isolated him wasn’t just his penchant for overachieving…

He’d only ever known the adjective “queer” in the context of Victorian literature where the author described something as “strange or unusual.” Judging by the way people used it when describing _him_ , he felt it had a different, more sinister connotation. Asking the few friends he did have for a more complete definition was out of the question. He knew he shouldn’t care what others thought, but not understanding slang was one of the squarest things a square could do.

Seeking his father’s counsel, he waited until Charlie McGill arrived home for the evening after closing up shop. With his mother minding baby Jimmy in the kitchen, Chuck approached his father in the living room, uncertain of how he might broach the subject.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, son?” Charlie reclined in his chair, watching cheery cereal commercials and sipping from a glass of water.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You already have. Twice,” his father laughed kindly, “Go ahead, Chuck. Lay it on me!”

“It’s just—the boys at school call me names…” he doesn’t get to finish before his father cuts him off.

“Oh, don’t listen to them.”

“I know. I don’t listen to them, but I—they call me this one name, and I don’t know what it means. Could you tell me?” His throat feels constricted, and he feels faint. Why was this so hard?

“Sure. I’ve been around the block a few times; I probably have an answer for ya,” he smiles, trying to alleviate the fear he sees in his son’s eyes.

“I…don’t want to say it. I think it might be a curse word.”

“You can spell it out if you want,” Charlie was proud that his son was so conscientious; he couldn’t have asked for a better kid.

“Okay,” Chuck breathed deep then started spelling, “Q-U-E-E-R.”

Each letter was like a mortar blast to his father demeanor, turning him from open and supportive to deeply embarrassed. After a few seconds spent considering an answer, Charlie opened his mouth but no speech materialized. Chuck’s mother called them to dinner, permanently delaying an explanation, and considering the visceral reaction his father had, he felt ashamed he’d asked the question in the first place. That was the last time he ever consulted his father about his personal life.

Through context clues, Chuck figured out that “queer” meant he hadn’t gone with any girls. Engrossed in his studies, he never gave girls a second thought, but maybe this was a sign that he needed to. By November, he had a girlfriend, which put a stop to the name-calling and lifted a tension in the McGill household he hadn’t noticed until it was gone.

***

Chuck thought he knew what love was until it hit him square on the nose second semester of college. Descriptions of love from even the sappiest prose didn’t make sense until he laid eyes on Dr. Sasha Ebbinghaus. His piano professor was a dream, or rather he was a living nightmare. Men weren’t supposed to love men, but with each piano lesson his pale cheeks blushed pinker and his heart bled more profusely than ever until he had to forfeit his music minor to keep his bearings.

Fortunately, in college it was normal to be too busy to date, so he immersed himself in his studies. His professors told him he could be anything he set his mind to, and because the sight of blood made him nauseous, he pursued the prestigious path of law school. No one expected him to marry until he had established a career, so he spent his 20s networking like a damn fool, building a reputation for perfection.

At age 30, his world fell apart.

Jimmy had robbed their father of his livelihood, and 6 months later, he’d robbed him of his life. How could Chuck ever have expected that the hours he spent praying as a child for his family’s safety were misguided at best and idiotic at worst?  
Communists didn’t destroy his family; his own brother did.


End file.
